Jonathan Lynn gives evasive people precise things to say. His writing with Antony Jay on Yes Minister is a considerable pleasure, though its recurring suspicion of good intentions can become too easy.
Fi1m perspective
In Yes Minister (1980), Sir Humphrey Appleby can prolong an answer until it is barely an answer at all. Nigel Hawthorne delivers these qualifications so calmly that the discourtesy scarcely seems to occur to him. We laughed aloud at Hawthorne's composure as each extra qualification made his answer less helpful. Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay supply the words, but leave room for Paul Eddington's responses to make the exchange funny. This is writing we recommend for the care it takes over both sides of a conversation.
Lynn's writing partnership with Jay began in the late 1970s; their research into government bureaucracy helped give the dialogue its precision. They extended the series into the Prime Minister's office with Yes, Prime Minister (1986). His feature directing began with Clue (1985), and mismatched groups became another route into comedy. He also wrote and directed Nuns on the Run (1990), with Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane. With My Cousin Vinny (1992), he directed a broader comedy built around a fish-out-of-water lawyer, a move away from the practised conversational manoeuvres of his television writing.
In Yes Minister, Lynn and Jay give the actors repeated chances to make vanity visible without having anyone confess to it. Eddington, Hawthorne and Derek Fowlds conceal irritation or acknowledge understanding through small variations that keep familiar exchanges alive. The lines need that responsiveness; merely reciting them would miss much of the comedy. Yet over three series, the kinds of evasion recur often enough for us to anticipate where a conversation is going. Sometimes the writing takes longer to arrive there than we would like.
The more substantial reservation concerns Lynn and Jay's distrust of anyone claiming to mean well. That is a productive starting point for comedy, but we want the programme to question it more often. When declarations of good intentions repeatedly invite suspicion, the writing can settle into an assumption it no longer has to examine. Watch Yes Minister an episode at a time; its characters' habits become harder to forgive in bulk.
Biography
Jonathan Lynn is a British-American film director, screenwriter and actor. Born in Bath, Somerset, he read law at Pembroke College, Cambridge, before pursuing a career in theatre and comedy. He began as an actor, appearing in the revue Cambridge Circus alongside future Monty Python members.
With Antony Jay, Lynn co-created and co-wrote the BBC political satire Yes Minister (1980–1984) and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister (1986–1988). He later directed comedy features including Clue (1985), Nuns on the Run (1990), My Cousin Vinny (1992) and The Whole Nine Yards (2000). He has also written books based on the Yes Minister series and directed stage adaptations.
